New Delhi: The government will kick-off an investor roadshow in March, seeking participants for the proposed auction of 69 marginal oil fields across the country, oil secretary K D Tripathi has said.

In September, the government had unveiled a policy for developing marginal fields with 89 million tonne of oil and gas equivalent.

The policy incentivizes producers to freely price gas and pick buyers, and introduces a revenue-sharing model in the country’s hydrocarbon sector.

The government will finalize the model contract for the auction this month, following which the roadshow will start in India and abroad, Tripathi said.

Based on the level of investor interest during the roadshow, the timing of the auction will be decided, he said.

With crude oil prices dropping to $30 a barrel from $115 in mid-2014, auctioning new oil and gas assets have become a losing proposition for governments.

The commodity crash has squeezed profits and cash reserves at oil firms, forcing them to shelve projects and slash capital spending. This has given rise to fears that the marginal field auction may not receive much participation and not secure a reasonable price for the national resources.

But a delay in auction also means that smaller fields that have waited for years to go into production may continue to stay on the sidelines.

These 69 blocks were discovered by state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) earlier but not monetized due to their isolated location, limited reserve, high development cost, technological constraints and fiscal regime.

The government had hoped that the marginal field policy can help kick-start some action in the upstream sector with fresh investments and creation of jobs, and eventual contribution to the country’s energy security.